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India Rises Five Spots To Become 58th Most Competitive Economy

India was ranked 58 with a score of 62 in the latest Global Competitiveness Report, the largest gain among BRIC nations.

General economy of India (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg) 
General economy of India (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg) 

India has been ranked as the 58th most competitive economy on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index for 2018. The U.S. is the most competitive economy in the world.

India rose five spots from its 2017 position, the largest gain among G20 economies, the WEF said. On the list of 140 economies, the U.S. was followed by Singapore and Germany at the second and the third positions respectively.

India ranked 58th with a score of 62 in the latest Global Competitiveness Report. Meanwhile, neighbouring China was ranked 28th in the overall list.

According to the report, the top performers in the "upper and lower middle-income brackets", such as China and India, are catching up with or even outperforming the average among high-income economies.

China is already more advanced when it comes to investing in research and development sub-pillar than the average high-income economy. India isn’t far behind and has been let down only by its less-efficient bureaucracy for business creation and insolvency.
Global Competitiveness Report.

Among the BRICS economies, China topped the list at the 28th place with a score of 72.6, ahead of the Russian Federation, which was 43rd, South Africa at the 67th position, and Brazil trailing at the 72nd place. India, however, remained the "South Asia's main driving force.”

As per the report, India leads the region in all other areas of competitiveness except for health, education and skills, where Sri Lanka boasts the highest healthy life expectancy (67.8 years) and the workforce with the highest amount of schooling (9.8 years).

"India and Sri Lanka are also the ones that can rely on the most efficient infrastructure system. India has invested more heavily on transport infrastructure and services, while Sri Lanka has the most modern utility infrastructure," it added.

As per the report, India’s greatest competitive advantages include its market size, innovation (in particular the quality of its research establishments) and business dynamism, including the number of disruptive businesses.

While the areas that the country needs to improve include, labour market, in particular the workers rights, product market (trade tariffs, specifically) and skills (in particular pupil-teacher ratio).

Other countries in the top 10 include the following in ascending order: Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 4.0 is a composite indicator that assesses the set of factors that determine an economy’s level of productivity and is widely considered the most important determinant of long-term growth.